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What It's About
Life organization products that are fun, playful, and colorful.
Business Model
Arts & Crafts
Skills Required
Design & Marketing
Complexity
Low
Profit Potential
Medium
Words of Wisdom
Need capital to launch a product? Consider crowdfunding but be aware that there's a lot of research and work needed to launch a successful campaign. Consider this as a good option for funding and compare it to a more traditional option such as taking out a loan.
Fun Fact
Studies show that coloring, like meditation, offers many benefits including decreasing anxiety, improving mood, boosting creativity, and promoting mindfulness. Source: University of West England Bristol
Notes from Chris
Episode 1075
Cleveland-based Lora DiFranco is a creative person who enjoys spending time in nature. She also considers herself obsessed with self-improvement and goal-setting—sometimes, she admits, too obsessed. As you might imagine, these competing focus areas can sometimes create problems. Lora isn’t alone. Working as an Account Manager for a branding and marketing studio, she’s surrounded by people just like her—free spirits who found themselves spending a ton of time staring at screens or working to cross everything off of their to-do list. Lora wanted and needed reminders to slow down. When she searched for tools and couldn’t find exactly what she was looking for … she got to work making it. Free Period Press, her side hustle, creates products to help customers unplug and focus on what's most important to them. The first product was an adult coloring book. Why a coloring book? You see, looking to make friends post-college, a sometimes-daunting task when you leave the dorms, Lora started a monthly craft night at her house. While the turnout was good, the result wasn’t what she’d hoped for. Many of her friends would say they didn’t have a craft, and instead brought their laptops. Staring at their screens was no way to build connection, so Lora quickly searched for a solution. She wanted something anybody could do, something that wasn’t too intense but still helps you unwind. Coloring books were the solution! So when it came time to launch Free Period Press, these nostalgia-inducing pages would be her first product. To get started, she found a designer and then researched and determined startup costs would be about $5,500: $500 for the design, plus $5,000 to print the first run. Lora had been fully self-funding her new venture with her weekly paycheck, so she decided to launch a Kickstarter. If successful, the campaign would not only validate a market for the idea but also provide the needed funds for printing. The Kickstarter campaign was successful, raising all of the money she needed. A few months later, she was shipping out the first coloring books—and emboldened by the positive customer response, she immediately started thinking about the next product. This started in 2013. Lora has now launched a new project nearly every year, many of them via Kickstarter. In 2015, she released five more coloring books. Then in 2016, she launched what’s become her biggest success: The Habit Calendar. In this calendar, you write the habits you want to track in the left column and check off the habits you've completed at the end of every day. The easy to use tool was a hit with customers. All of the hard work has paid off. After earning $6,000 in her first year, annual profits were steadily around $10,000-$15,00 for several years, before increasing further. Going forward, she plans to focus on increasing her social media presence, influencer marketing, and more direct to consumer tactics, which she’ll now have time to do with Free Period Press as her full-time focus. One of the things she loves most about her side hustle is coming up with a new product idea, and then having the ability to bring it to market. She also loves seeing the enthusiasm and excitement in people’s faces when they learn about the product, giving her fuel to create even more.MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Free Period Press: Check out Lora's full lineup at her website.
- Kickstarter: The crowdfunding platform Lora used to launch her products.
- Lora uses Wholesale in a Box to source leads from retailers and Faire to process those orders.
- Communications Teacher Turns Love of Journaling Into Etsy Shop: In her search for a side hustle, this college communications instructor turns to her love of journaling. She then learns to manufacture a custom product from overseas and sell it back at home.
- If At First You Don’t Succeed, Make DIY Journals: Two friends try to start an online wedding platform, but they end up with a monthly subscription service offering personalized DIY journals.
- Architect Changes Commuting, One Pocket-Sized Book at a Time: A Chicago-based architect makes access to classical literature easier for readers, raising $50,000 on Kickstarter along the way.
Quote of the Day
"Starting a business is full of so many possible distractions, so start with one small step that feels right to you and focus on that."
—Lora DiFranco #SideHustleSchool
